The subject is unfit for prose. It properly belongs to the drama. The true province of the imagination is poetry, and although this divine faculty may stoop to prose, it can never truly shine but in the celestial garments of the muse. We do not deny the impossibility of treating an ideal theme in prose—we only assert the superior advantages which poetry affords for the same object. Transitions may be tolerated in the drama which should be anathematized in prose. But, above all, poetry would favor the preservation of the illusion to which we have already referred. The _tone_ of a story such as Zanoni is, could be better preserved in poetry. The idea of the tale is inexpressibly grand, and might have been worked out with terrible effect. The struggle in Zanoni’s mind betwixt his love for Viola and his longing for an earthly immortality would have produced, if evolved by a master hand, a tragedy equal to Manfred, Faust, we had almost said Prometheus. But we have said enough under this head. Let us look at the characters. Of Zanoni we have already spoken. His character belongs to a lofty region of the ideal. The conception of Pisani, also, is highly imaginative. He comes in, at the opening of the tale, with the same effect with which a fine overture precedes an opera. He prepares the mind, by his unearthly music, for the mysteries that are to follow. His barbican, his solitary life, his dreams of wild figures and wilder music in the air, entitle him to a high rank in the ideal. What a grand thought is that which represents him at the theatre, mechanically performing his part, while all the time his soul is thinking of his beloved opera, so that often, unconsciously to himself, he bursts out into its weird and startling music!